Negotiation Tactics
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Negotiation > Negotiation Tactics
In negotiation, there are many tactics that you may meet or use. They can be fair,
foul or something in between, depending on the
competitive or
collaborative style of
the people involved and the seriousness of the outcomes.
-
All I've Got: Limit apparent availability.
- Auction: Set sellers or buyers against one
another.
- Bad Publicity: Indicate bad publicity of not agreeing.
-
Behavior
Labeling: Saying what you will do.
- Better Offer: indicate a better offer from the competition.
- Better Than That: Just say 'You'll have
to do better than that...'.
- Biased Choice: Offering choices that
already include your biases.
- Big Fish: Show you're the big fish and they
could get eaten.
- Blackmail: Threaten negative consequences.
- Bluff: Assert things that are not true.
- Breaking it Off: Walking away from the
negotiation.
-
Bribery: Do that and I'll give you this.
- Brooklyn Optician: price or negotiate
each item.
- Call Girl: Ask to be paid up front.
- Cards on the Table: State your case,
clearly and completely.
- Challenge Cause: Ask why, reframe
purpose.
- Change the Negotiator: New person can reset the rules.
- Changing Standards: Change the
benchmarks of good and bad.
- Check the Facts: Bring up new information
you have found.
- Control the Agenda: And hence what is
discussed.
- Credentials: Show how clever you are.
- Deadlines: Push them up against the wall of
time.
- Delays: Buying time and building tension.
- Disruption: Break up their thinking and
take charge.
- Divide and Conquer: Get them arguing with
one another.
- Doomsday: paint an overly black picture.
- Double Agent: Get one of their people on
your side.
- Dry Well: Show you've nothing left to exchange.
- Empty Pockets: Say you can't afford it,
don't have it, etc.
- Empty Promises: Make promises that you
know you will not keep.
- Escalating Demand: the more you get
the more you require.
-
Expanding the Pie: Ensuring there's more for
everyone.
- Fair Criteria: Set decisions criteria such
that is is perceived as fair.
- False Deadline: Time limitation on their
action.
- Faking: Letting them believe something about you
that is not true.
- Fame: Appeal to their need for esteem from others.
- Flattery: Make them look good and then ask for
concession.
- Flip
a Coin: Suggest random chance.
- Food
Control: Control what and when they eat and drink.
- Forced Choice: Subtly nudging them toward
your choice.
- Funny Money: Financial games, percentages,
increments, etc.
- Fragmentation: Breaking big things into
lots of little things.
-
Go For A Walk: Take time out to change.
- Good Guy/Bad Guy: Hurt and rescue by
people.
- Highball: Sellers--start high and you can always go
down.
- Hire an Expert: Get an expert negotiator or
subject expert on your team.
- Incremental Conversion: Persuade
one person at a time. Then use them as allies.
- Interim Trade: Make an exchange during
negotiation that will not get into the final contract.
-
Invoke Rules: Bring up standards they should
follow.
-
It'll be
Alright on the Night: Promise future success.
- Lawyer: Use survey results, facts, logic, leading question.
- Leaking: Let them find out 'secret' information.
- Linking: Connect benefit and cost, strong and
weak.
-
Log-rolling: Concede on low-priority items.
- Lowball: Buyers--start low and you can always go
up.
- Make a Mountain out of a Molehill:
Amplify small things.
-
Misleading Information: Lead them up the wrong path.
- New Issue: Introduce a new key issue during
the negotiation.
- New player: Another person who wants what you
have appears on the scene.
- Nibbling: constant adding of small requirements.
- No Authority: refuse to agree because you
are not allowed to.
- Non-negotiable: Things that cannot be
negotiated.
-
Not Happy: Say you're not happy.
-
Odd One Out: Show they're they only one who wants
this.
-
Off the Record: Make things informal.
- Overwhelm: Cover them in requests or
information.
- Padding: Make unimportant things 'essential'
then concede them.
- Phasing: Offer to phase in/out the unpleasant
bits.
- Plant: A 'neutral' person who is really working
for you.
-
Play Dumb: Act stupid to avoid clever stuff.
-
Using Policy: Is it your policy to...
-
Price Not
Negotiable: So focus on other things.
- Quivering Quill: ask for concession just before signing.
- Red Herring: leave a false trail.
- Russian Front: Two alternatives, one
intimidating.
- Reducing Choice: Offering a limited set
of options.
-
Rollercoastering: Taking them on an up and down ride.
- See You in Court: Threatening to go to a
higher or public forum.
- Shotgun: Refusal to continue until a concession
is gained.
-
Side Payments: Add a cash balance.
- Slicing: Break one deal down into multiple
smaller deals.
- Split the Difference: Offer to agree on
a half-way position.
- Suggest
Facilitation: Get a third party involved.
- Take
a Break: Step out, change the flow.
- Take It or Leave It: Give only one option.
- Trial Balloon: Suggest a final solution
and see if they bite.
-
Understanding, Not Agreement: Say you understand but don't agree.
- Undiscussable: Things that cannot even be discussed.
- War: Threaten extreme action.
- What If: Introduce possibility.
- Widows and Orphans: show the effect on the weak and innocent.
- Wince: Repeat price loudly, then silence.
-
The Zone Defense: Individuals each have areas of
responsibility.
See also
Sequential
requests,
Resistance to change, Defensive body
language, Questioning,
Fallacies
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